It’s been a little over a month and I had finally reached level 80.  Now what am I supposed to do?

I’m talking about the latest expansion to World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.  From the the month of July to the present I’ve been playing online at least three sessions a night and a little bit more on the weekend.  I got sucked into questing and grinding to get that one more level but I always wondered, what happens when you hit the level cap?  Did everything come to an end?  Not by a long shot.

The beauty of World of Warcraft and in this case Wrath of the Lich King and perhaps the genius behind Blizzard is that it’s never over.  There is always something to do.  Now I’m doing daily quests and trying to save up for a faster flying mount.  But doing the same quest gets old and fast so you have to be creative and imaginative.  So today I decided to help fellow gamers and it was one of the best gaming sessions I ever had.  I traveled from city to village from the shores of the Howling Fjord to the mountains of Storm Peaks finding other players who were being attacked and I lent a helping hand.  If I saw they were in trouble, I swooped down and hit the enemies with a barrage of virtual sword swipes and shot many arrows from my mythical bow and then I would sit back and see what kind of responses I got.  Most people said thank you and some didn’t say anything.  Some players even accused me of stealing their kill.  But what happened nearly all the time was that no one wanted help after the fact.  I found it odd that most players would say thanks and move on even after I asked if they needed help any where else.  Perhaps even in a virtual world full of millions and millions of gamers from all over the world, some people just want their piece and quiet.  Although not scientific, it was a fun social experiment regardless. 

This brings up an interesting question: Do we play games to escape reality just to re-create a symbol of our own reality virtually?  Did that sentence even make sense?  I hope so.  But in a strange way it does.  Now I’m not a doctor of anything but for myself, in reality, I like to help people and I find myself to be a social person.  And looking at how I play games online and off, my gameplay seems to reflect how I act in real life-even when I’m an Undead Warrior member of the Horde or a space marine in the future killing Locusts who burst through the ground with unrelenting aggression.  So next time you play any game rather it be Solitaire or Gears of War 2 or even Wrath of the Lich King, take a step back and ask yourself how close to reality do you make your games out to be.  Do you play to escape reality?  Or do you in fact try to re-create your own reality in game.  But above all, have fun and play safe and remember: It’s just a game.

Do you want to play Rock Band like a real drummer?

Well the Ion Drum Rocker is pretty close to the real thing and a great start to a real quality electronic drum set.  This set came out in conjunction with Rock Band 2 a couple months back for a high price of of console itself at around $299 but was it worth the steep entry?  In two words, yes and yes.

The Ion Drum Rocker is leaps and bounds above the standard wireless drums that Rock Band 2 puts out.  The wireless drums had sensitivity issues that caused you to miss notes or even activate other pads that you weren't even hitting.  Sometimes I would be in a roll on the red pad and the blue pad would be going off at the same time.  And the there was the pedal problem.  Sure the bass pedal had a metal strip the prevent cracking but they forgot to reinforce the hinge and that's where my pedal snapped just two hours into playing during a Fleetwood Mac song.  The Ion Drums have none of these problems what so ever.  The pads are sturdy as ever with a thick layered pad of gum rubber ready to take a beating and the pedal feels like it weighs as much as the standard set itself.  The pedal is actually a converted hi-hat pedal from the Alesis DM5 electronic drum set but it does the job rather well despite sometimes sticking a bit.  But perhaps the best part of the Ion Drum Rocker is that it is totally configurable.  There really is no right or wrong way to set it up.  Just simply unscrew a couple of wingnuts and rotate a couple pads and move the cymbals up and down and you're set.  And when you feel like you've mastered Rock Band 2, you can then purchase a drum "brain" and have yourself a fully expandable drum set without using an Xbox 360 or home theater hook up at all.

So if you're are serious about drumming and got some extra scratch, go ahead and get the Ion Drum Rocker.  It's well worth the investment and you won't ever want to play the standard drums again.

How about some semi-holiday music to listen to.

  By semi-holiday I mean the soundtrack of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack with songs remastered by artists such as Korn doing an awesome reimagining of "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" or Flyleaf performing the wistful but in this case rock and roll version of "What's This".  Don't get me wrong, I still love the original motion picture soundtrack created by Danny Elfman, but I'll definitely enjoy playing his alternative creations first for a change this holiday.

  You can find "Nightmare Revisited" on the Zune Marketplace from Walt Disney Soundtracks.

 Nightmare Revisited Track List:

1. Overture-DeVotchka
2. Opening-Danny Elfman
3. This Is Halloween-Marilyn Manson
4. Jack's Lament-The All American Rejects
5. Doctor Finkelstein-Amiina
6. What's This-Flyleaf
7. Town Meeting Song-The Polyphonic Spree
8. Jack and Sally Montage-Vitamin String Quartet
9. Jack's Obsession-Sparklehorse
10. Kidnap the Sandy Claws-Korn
11. Making Christmas-Rise Against
12. Nabbed-Yoshida Brothers
13. Oogie Boogie's Song-Rodrigo y Gabriella
14. Sally's Song-Amy Lee
15. Christmas Eve Montage-Rjd2
16. Poor Jack-Plain White T's
17. To The Rescue-Datarock
18. Finale/Reprise-Shiny Toy Guns
19. Closing-Danny Elfman
20. End Title-The Album Leaf
21. Oogie Boogie's Song-Tiger Army

I'm back.  But where the hell have I been?

It's been an interesting couple of months.  The economy went in the gutter, Obama was elected as our next President of the United States of America, tons of video games came out such as Gears of War 2 and Wrath of the Lich King, and I've been playing my new drums every night living out my rockstar wannabe dream.  I know that's a lot to swallow, but it's time to get back on track.

Once again there will be a few changes to nc454 Land.  It's still going to be the spot for home theater, gadget news, and video games and music, but with the 454 twist.  What does that mean?  What it means is that i won't bore you with technicalities about audio quality or what TV has the best pixel count but I'll break it down why you should tailor your electronic needs to your own taste.  I'm here to point you in the right direction. 

So the 454 will go back to basics.  In the following weeks you'll see the "Of the Week" series with something new every weekday from anything from picture of the week to music of the week.  Think of it as stuff to check out when you got a spare moment.  And don't forget about the monthly giveaways!  Next week I'll be kicking off another season of contest giveaways with a PAX swag pack giveaway from the many stickers and cool art books and random brochures I collected while in Seattle.  So hang tight everyone and keep an eye on the sight and throw the 454 blog into your RSS reader for the latest 454 coolness.

Originally I was planning on doing a full review of Rock Band 2.  Unfortunately I’ve encountered the same issues as I did in Rock Band 1-the Wireless Drum Pedal broke at the hinge that connects it to the base rendering the whole set up useless.  I thought I had fixed the problem by plugging up my old Keyboard sustain pedal to use as a bass pedal until I get my repaired one back but then I encountered a new problem.  Whenever the yellow pad is struck, the blue pad goes off causing you to miss notes and in the end fail songs.  At first it seemed like a calibration issue but after trying it on three different televisions and three different audio set ups, it’s been confirmed that the issue is the pads themselves.

Since the hardware was sold separately, I still want to play through Rock Band 2 as a game and give it a fair review.  But keep in mind I don’t give grades or percentages, just opinions.  Is it worth buying or not.  So with that in mind I ordered some sturdier drums from Ion Audio and they should be in sometime next week.  Be on the look out for a live uStream of the assembly of the drums and a play through as well.*

*Links for the demonstration will be up soon!